S05E13: We're From the High Council
blurb tl;dr Introducing Angelina Jolie Notes la la la la la la notes A teifling warlock appears! With black eyes and really long red hair. A big tail. A shapeshifting animal (currently a toad) on her shoulder. Wearing studded leather with flowy bottom bits; loose and comfortable. Dark blue skin. She appeared in this exact room and doesn’t look surprised. The teleportation magic is recognizable as the way we teleport for drake guard assignment. We can see that her toad is wearing a hat that indicates it is a member of the drake guard. Nissa: “Show your bracer!” Carlos: Identify yourself, toad! Toad: Ribbit! I am Fartface the toad. Kanye: I am Kanye Cantaliber! Who is your companion, toad? Toad: Ribbit! Angelina Jolie Carlos: What are you doing here, fartface the toad? Toad: I’m here to protect my master, Angelina Jolie Carlos: Oh! So you’re not the master of this warlock you’re hanging out with? Toad: Ribbit! Yes Nissa: curtsey “nice to meet you, Angelina Jolie” The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse The Drakeguard office has sent Angelina with a message: sent by the R&D department to say there’s a pattern of the instigators of the last few missions we’ve been involved in. Know that the gang is facing an incarnation of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse led by He Who Sleeps. Nissa remembers that we saw a green horse tattoo on Talldick Lowery, which makes him pestilence. The four horsemen of the apocalypse are (similar to the real world + ) entities that come into the world on a cycle, and this is one incarnation but they’ve come up before and whenever they do it’s bad. The world has to come together to stop them. Others are death, famine, war+conquest The woman trying to do the sacrifice was trying to cause a famine The red woman was trying to start a conflict And we’re now pursuing someone who is looking for a weapon of mass destruction Only Nissa knows about the four horsemen; the rest of us just know it as a myth. Kanye gives Angelina a tracking cookie signet ring to recognize her as not a doppelganger. Kanye looks for treasure and finds a horn of blasting. The script in gnomish describes a triumphant victory. Presumably casts some sort of spell. Carlos knows what this horn is: it’s a wondrous item and is rare. If you speak the horn’s command word and blow it it makes a loud cone-shape noise that causes thunder damage. Etc etc see the description in the D&D docs Kanye gives the horn to Nissa to look at the engraving. Kanye suggests having a safety word to say before saying the command word. Nissa says the code word is “ear muffs”. Dealing with the Cultists Um sneaks down the corridor to peek into the cultists room. Cultists room has a bunch of cultists. Four generic cultists eating and resting. Also look like they’ve been in a fight. Another one is lying on the ground dead. There is a fifth person in the room who is taller and harder looking than the others. Um, Nissa and Angelina go to the lower alchemy storage room. This was formerly an alchemy storage room but now it’s just full of empty containers and containers full of useless old stuff. Kanye and Carlos walk down towards the Cultists room, same route as Um took earlier. See the same cultists as before. Now look like they are starting to stir and are finished resting. Carlos calls the cultists over to get their attention. Kanye smacks his berserker claws and makes sparkles and noises. The cultists jump up and get their weapons ready. The tall guy walks over and stands at a safe distance. Carlos: Come here I want to talk to you! Cultist: No. You come here. Carlos: You can come down here if you wanna talk. Kanye: How dare you! Who dares to defy me! Come here or I will see your head on a pike. He’s intimidated, but he steps away and tells the other cultists to arm up. Kanye: Get into a single-file line! Carlos loudly apologizes for his friend and identifies him as a representative of the high council of He Who Sleeps. We are his closest advisors and also TaskRabbits and you’ll need to come down here and talk to me about this shit he sent us down here for and if not then there’s gonna be trouble. The cultist starts sweating when he hears “the high council”. He doesn’t want to get on the wrong side of the high council. He still doesn’t walk down the corridor, though. Carlos: Fine! I understand you are a little apprehensive. That will be noted in my field report. I will approach so that you can see that I’m unarmed (other than all of the weapons I’m carrying) and not a threat. Carlos walks forward and casts Suggestion and tells him: I understand you did a great job here and got hold of the Forest Psalm and that was good work. He Who Sleeps is now ready to employ that phase of his plan, so I suggest very strongly that you hand over the Forest Psalm so we can bring it to him and continue the plan. The spell takes effect and the leader starts walking towards Carlos. He comes down the hallway, is standing right in front Cultist: We’re not supposed to tell anyone about this, but… we don’t have it yet. Roreth is out back looking for how to get to the next floor. Just got done fighting the lizard folk. Carlos: Which one is Roreth? Cultist: Pale robes. Looks like Rasputin. Flames on his robes. Carlos: Well, this is disappointing and is not going to look good for any of you. But we can probably work around this, but you’ll need to do exactly what we tell you to do. Everyone, just sit tight in that room, do not leave that room for any reason. Kanye: What we’re going to do to Roreth might sound terrible, but we have to make an example of him. Cultist is worried but isn’t going to stand up for Roreth. Carlos tells him to go back, while he confers with his colleagues. The cultists go back in to their room and sit back down. Carlos and Kanye go into the Alchemy Storage room where the rest of the party is. Interrogating Roreth After lots and lots of deliberation, the gang decides to interrogate Roreth. Um walks around to the corridor observation space again and waits for them to emerge from the door, planning to observe and be a lookout. Kanye and the others emerge and walk through the Cultist room, glare at the cultists we already met, and then walk to the door of the room where Roreth is. Kanye smashes down the door. Inside there’s some shelves with old stuff on them, and there’s a desk, and the place looks like it has been ransacked recently. Roreth is hunched over the desk looking at documents, and looks up rather alarmed. Kanye grabs Roreth and picks him up and glares at him. Kanye shakes him around violently. Carlos closes the door behind him. Carlos: What’s up, Roreth? Roreth: Hello? Who the fuck are you guys? Carlos: We are from the high council of He Who Sleeps. I’ll tell you right now this isn’t going to go well for you… I don’t like your attitude. Roreth looks suspicious and shrugs a bit. He’s listening but not 100% convinced. Carlos: We’re aware of the bumbling idiot status you’ve achieved here. The boss man is sick of waiting for his Forest Psalm. Sent us here to see what’s going on and get this done. Talked to your boys outside… all idiots, not impressed with any of them. They said that all you know is that you think the shit’s upstairs and you don’t know how to get upstairs. Is that right? Roreth: How did you. …. ? Carlos: Is that ALL YOU KNOW? Roreth: Yes, I’ve tortured some of the Lizardfolk and believe they know how to get up there. Capturing the Lizardfolk shaman will give us the information we need. Seems that Roreth isn’t actually on an official mission and he’s kinda gone rogue for some reason. But he’s now cooperating because he thinks it’s a way out of him being here illicitly and is going along with it. Roreth is also busy looking for ways to get out of this… looking around the room, shifty-eyes. Carlos: What else have you tried for getting upstairs? Have you looked for staircases or escalators? Roreth: to stay quiet but he can’t resist getting snarky Yes. I’ve checked for stairs. There are no stairs. This is a fucking wizards pyramid… there’s probably some magical nonsense to get up there. Carlos: Let up the snark lest my friend let up his hand. Roreth bites his tongue. Carlos: One more question before something bad happens in here. Did you look in that bit mist-filled room for some sort of stairwell? Roreth: I know it’s full of a trap that prevents you from finding whatever is in there. Carlos: Okay. Kanye… tie him up and gag him. Kanye: I will give him my best……… knots. Kanye ties him up and, for fun, dresses him up in a ritual cloak to make him look like someone the lizard folk might worship. Tied him so he can still walk, with short ropes between his ankles so he can walk but not run. Arms tied behind him, under the cloak. Hood over his head to hide the gag. Make him look like he’s impersonating a lizard folk. Angelina notices a big magical aura coming from the cloak. Seems like nobody else can see it. It’s made out of large dark raven feathers. Angelina pulls a feather from the cloak and it suddenly turns into a dagger in her hand. After seeing the cloak magic, Kanye takes the cloak and hood back off again and hides it, since it seems pretty awesome. Kanye perp-walks Roreth out, kicking him along. The other cultists look horrified and confused -- maybe a little excited -- but mostly they look worried about what’s going to happen to them. They all look like they want to know what’s going to happen to them. Carlos: You guys got lucky this time… We’re going to just take Roreth in for disciplinary action. For now, just stay here and don’t fuck anything else up. According to the office, one of the highest priorities is to clear out that blocked hallway over there. So grab some buckets and spoons and get on with it. They go along with it because they can see that Roreth is all tied up and the gang means business. Turning Roreth Over to the Lizardfolk Kanye realizes that the Lizardfolk wanted to attack but were scared to do it. We’ve just won this battle for them, so they will hopefully be thankful and will listen to us. The gang approaches the door to the Lizardfolk room. We can hear inside lizard-talk. Those who can speak Draconic can hear argument and bickering about the best way to kill the “red men” and gain revenge for their slain brethren. Angelina knocks on the door, and the lizardfolks go quiet. The door opens, one peeks out and then immediately close the door. Lizardfolk Guard: “It’s the fucking humans! They are outside!” The door flies open again and there are five lizardfolk all pointing spears. Behind seems to be the queen and shaman. Shaman: In the name of our queen, what are you doing here? Angelina: We have the person who was attacking you They are surprised that Angelina speaks draconic. Shaman: Explain Angelina: We have a pathetic human cultist with us. Kanye kicks him forward. Angelina: He is nothing to us. Shaman: None of you are Lizardfolk… why would you do this? Angelina: This guy is an asshole and being a dick, plotting to kill your shaman, and that’s against the code of ethics of our secret society. Carlos: Ixnay on the Ecretsay Ocietysay Angelina: Right! Our… society. The Lizardfolk look at each other and seem to be trying to figure out whether to trust the gang. The shaman and queen seem to be debating, but we can’t hear them. Angelina and Carlos catch that they are saying something like… dealing with these cultists was the last thing we needed. We had enough trouble with what’s going on upstairs. Kanye gets bored and smacks Roreth around the back of his head. Carlos (in Common): Angelina, it sounds like they don’t want to fuck with us. Let’s tell them we specialize in dealing with trouble and we believe we might also need to get upstairs so maybe you can tell us a little more about what’s going on upstairs. Angelina (in Draconic): We might have a common enemy; we have interests upstairs too. The shaman looks, understanding that we’re now trying to get something out of them, and he understands better what the gang’s motivation is. Shaman: Are you familiar with the frog people? The big ugly frogs with sharp teeth. Angelina: We know them. We call them Slaad. Are they causing trouble? Shaman: We’ve been here for generations. The Slaad -- as you call them -- came less than a year ago. They killed many of us and kicked us out of the top floor of the pyramid. They are a problem for us. They are upstairs. If they are a problem for you too, then perhaps we can work out a deal. Carlos: How many of them are there? Shaman: Many. A lot. Carlos: How does one get upstairs? Shaman: We can tell you. But we want to know that you’ll deal with the frog people. Nissa has overheard that the Slaad are under discussion. Lets everyone know that they are creatures of chaos and they come from the world of limbo. They are the traditional enemy of the Modron. If they are here it is BAD NEWS. Angelina: We fight Slaad all the time. No problem.. we’ll deal with it. Shaman: Okay… we’ll show you how to get upstairs. Angelina: Don’t ungag this dude, cause he’s a magic user. The Lizardfolk explain how to defeat the trap on the door in the mist room, how to unlock the door, etc, etc. The gang turns over Roreth to the Lizardfolk and go into the mist room. The gang follows the ropes, etc, and there’s a set of stairs, with cobwebs. A loud rhythmic noise can be heard from above, and between it a voice is gibbering loudly. If it’s a language, it’s not one we’ve heard before.